


Like a lost limb

by Wild_Imagination



Series: Anytime, anywhere [2]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Erik Has Feelings, Fix-It, M/M, Poor Charles, Post-Break Up, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wild_Imagination/pseuds/Wild_Imagination
Summary: He unbuttoned the jacket of his frustratingly impeccable suit and untied the bow-tie, hoping for a release that didn't come.He put his hands in his pockets, not caring that it would ruin the line of his trousers.He frowned at his stricken expression in the mirror. “Heartsick” would have been the proper adjective for the way his eyes dunked in the dim, clinical light of the public toilet, but he refused to think of himself that way.What the hell was Erik doing at his fundraising?





	Like a lost limb

  
Inspired by these photos of James McAvoy: <http://hellozxxy.tumblr.com/post/183996605911>

 

 

Charles could do it.  
He knew he could because he _had_ to, because the school was worth it. But at what price?  
The evening had barely begun and he had already sneaked out to hide in the toilet.  
He had been so smug, so confident, so _naive_.  
His chest was suddenly tight and sore, as if a safety belt had squashed him against the seat to keep him from bashing into the windshield of his car.  
He unbuttoned the jacket of his frustratingly impeccable suit and untied the bow-tie, hoping for a release that didn't come. He put his hands in his pockets, not caring that it would ruin the line of his trousers.  
He frowned at his stricken expression in the mirror. “Heartsick” would have been the proper adjective for the way his eyes dunked in the dim, clinical light of the public toilet, but he refused to think of himself that way.

What the _hell_ was Erik doing at _his_ fundraising?

That kind of event was the epitome of everything he so vocally hated: unfair richness, smiling hypocrisy and well-worn bigotry. A bunch of middle-aged men with wallets so full they could save the economy of a small country alone, who tried to wash away their sins the only way they knew how: buying forgiveness. Thinking the words “freak” or “mutie” didn't seem so bad if you had just written a five-digit check to shelter a few of them.

So what the unjust fuck was Erik Lehnsherr doing there?

Charles could have found out, obviously, if he just hadn't freaked out the moment Erik had entered the room.  
He squeezed his eyes shut: he was so _pathetic_.

 

Emma Frost he had expected. She was the non-official accountant of the Brotherhood, and an old family… Acquaintance. He had acknowledged the presence of her painfully white, sharp mind with so much as a mental nod, his telepathy naturally recognizing an obstacle in her shields and assessing their strength.  
But then something about her thoughts had caught his attention. It was a blaze of anticipation, minty and sharp, that had clung to her shields as if someone had breathed on glass.  
It was deliberate, Charles knew that. Her mind was hardly impenetrable to him when she wasn't in her diamond form, but he should have applied at least a little pressure on her shields to crack them and let anything pierce through. Which he hadn't.

But the reason of her thrilled mischief had soon become clear. Painfully so.  

He had felt him before he had seen him on the other side of the room.  
Well, he had felt his _mind_.  
Charles’ throat was clogged still, as if he was trying to swallow a mouthful of stale bread.

God, that mind.

His traitor telepathy had reached out to it with the force of a cannonball and had smashed through Frost’s borrowed shields as if they were polystyrene.  
It would have done anything to wrap itself in the familiarity of those thoughts again, like sleeping in your own bed after months in cheap motels room, like hearing your mother tongue for the first time after years spent trying to understand the inflections and accents of a foreign language.     
Charles had rewrapped his telepathy in such haste that it had painfully snapped back into the supervised boundaries of his mind. Everyone within a five meters radius had flinched from the sudden sting of a headache.

Charles had sensed and seen Frost smiling knowingly despite the sharp pain caused by her shattered defenses, and had put up all the shields he could think of, closing his mind and his hurt in a virtual fortress. Brick after brick he had found himself alone in his own head, which had been both relieving and burdening.  
He had taken his leave from the benefactor who had spent the last ten minutes hoping to hide the knowledge of his sordid affair from a telepath, and he had moved to greet the new incomers as he had done any other time before, the other people mere shadows on his path.

Erik was as breathtaking as a stab in the gut.

All sharp lines and steely countenance, long legs and imposing shoulders. Disdainfully elegant in a grey suit that complimented sinfully the slimness of his waist and the unforgiving clarity of his eyes.  
Charles was ashamed to admit that he could not remember what Emma Frost was wearing despite having stood two feet away from her for the duration of the whole conversation.  
He could still feel the tremor of his wrists and the hammering of his heart from the moment they both had turned to assess his presence. Charles had fixed his cufflinks with unsteady fingers and an expression he hoped was neutral.  
When he had spoken his voice had sounded hollow to his own hears, but steady nonetheless. “Miss. Frost, Mr. Lehnsherr. It certainly is a delightful surprise to see you both here.”  
Erik’s eyes had been on him right away, and Charles had felt them puncturing his skull with laser-like intensity.

He hadn’t dared decipher the frown that wrinkled Erik’s face.  
He had bowed to delicately kiss Emma Frost’s hand as high society imposed, then turned to face the man he would have happily carved surgically out of his mind on bad days.  
He had offered his right hand for a brief greeting, and the contact with those slender, strong fingers had almost been more than he could bear.

It had been so familiar and yet so impersonal, as if his body had been waiting for a hug and had only received a pat on the shoulder. A cold dread had taken seat in his stomach, and his mind had started to restlessly scratch at his shields in an attempt to reach well-known lands.  
“Well,” Emma Frost had answered, voice amused and crystalline. “We may not see eye to eye on everything mutant-related, but there’s no denying the good a school for young mutants could do.”  
Charles had seriously wanted to laugh, then. An ugly sound that would have scraped his throat raw. Not seeing eye to eye on everything mutant-related was the reason why he was opening the school by himself, relying on nothing but his own blind conviction and need to make a difference, while Erik was now the representant of an extremist political party which wanted strikes and revolutions.  
Not to mention the reason why half of his bedroom in the mansion had been empty for six months, up to date.  
In the end his hilarity had taken the shape of a silent, grim smile. “I’m glad we can agree on that point, at least. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to help the other guests find their checkbooks. Enjoy your evening.”  
He had quickly turned away, then, hunted by a vague sense of dismay that wasn’t entirely his own.

His mental shields had been so sturdy that it had taken him a few instants to realize that someone was knocking on them as one would do a front door. After not detecting a threat nearby, he cautiously opened a tiny crack.  
Emma Frost’s whisper stormed into his mind. _He feels like he lost a limb too, you know_ .  
Charles had started to shiver and run to the toilet.

  
  
He turned on the tap and wetted his wrists with cold water, then ran his fingers through his hair and tugged at them.  
He felt sick and disoriented, as if someone had taken the wheel and violently steered.  
He saw his own, frightened eyes stare back at him from the mirror when another mind approached the toilet door.  

He didn’t have time to do anything before Erik slipped in and closed the door behind himself with a soft _click_ .  
Charles turned around and flattened against the counter, breathless and only a few feet away from him. The metal tap he had just used closed as if on its own volition.  
They stared at each other for unending moments, and in the face of his precise elegance, Charles was suddenly very conscious of his own disheveled state, and very tired. “What are you doing here, Erik?”

Erik looked at him, then, _truly_ looked at him, his face deflating and dismantling from his usual rigour. “No ‘Mr. Lehnsherr’, now?” Charles didn’t answer.  
Erik’s eyes were softer and sadder in the dim light. “I don’t know,” he admitted then. And for the first time in maybe ever Charles saw him unsure. “There was something wrong, earlier, I couldn’t- I couldn’t feel you at all. But it is better now in here. Not good, but better.”  
Charles was momentarily puzzled.  
Then he understood and his heart squeezed achingly.

He always let his mind unfurl when he was with Erik, even when they were only friends. He didn’t constantly read his thoughts, obviously, he just… stayed there. A warm presence in the back of his mind, the mental equivalent of a hand on the small of his back, or an arm around his shoulders.  
And now he was completely gone, even when they talked. Charles suddenly realised he hadn’t been the only one left alone.  
He folded his arms on his chest. “It’s the shields,” he answered, and looked away to avoid those peering eyes. “We can’t afford that kind of-”  
“Trust?” Erik intervened, and he sounded bitter.  
“I was going to say ‘intimacy’, actually,” Charles frowned. “I never said I didn’t trust you, Erik, I only said I wasn’t going to give up on my views to embrace yours, nor I wanted to be your accomplice.”  
There was a long pause, and then: “What if,” Erik took a step forward, raised his arm and then lowered it again. “What if you didn’t have to?”  
Charles’ heart started hammering in his chest. He felt dizzy. “You want _mutant supremacy_ , you despise humans, you say they will-”  
“I did,” Erik admitted again, fervent and serious. He ran his fingers through his hair.  
“What changed?”  
“I was wrong. The bill didn’t pass, humans actually marched with us, I want to believe there’s another way, because…”  
Charles saw him swallowing and steeling himself. The blood rushing in his ears was so loud that he almost missed Erik’s next whisper.  
“Because I want you back. There’s no reason in fighting if I’m not fighting with you.”

Charles’ knees were weak. He felt shaken to his very core, and he attempted to step forward.  
“No, wait,” Erik stopped him, his arms outstretched. His hands were trembling too. “I don’t want to deceive you. I promise I’ll try to see things your way, but I don’t know if I can. Integration is so far away, and If the humans try to hurt any of us I _will_ get my hands dirty to stop them, especially now that we are starting the school…”  
Charles snorted wetly and launched himself at him. His body knocked into Erik so hard that they stumbled and hit the toilet door with a loud _thump_ . Erik groaned a laugh and grabbed at his sides. His fingers slipped under the fabric of his shirt and sunk in his skin, rough and hot.  
Charles held on Erik’s face with both of his hands and kissed him with everything he had, joyous and careless for the first time in months. He tore down every single shield standing in his way and finally released his telepathy. It wrapped around that bright and beloved mind, readjusting immediately to its dips and angles, reassuring its last doubts. Erik smiled against his lips, contentment and exhilaration glowing in his thoughts, and his arms tightened around Charles’ upper body.


End file.
